My Red Dead Redemption Stats
- Platform: PS3
- Release Date: 5/18/10 (less than 1 month behind!)
- Playthroughs: 1+ @ 50 hours, plus 10 hours MP
- Trophies: 42/69
- I compare it to: Grand Theft Auto: The Old West (but it's so much more really)
- Play it again? Of course! There's still more YoSaffBridge's* to lasso.
- Urgency: Buy, Borrow, or Beg!
Honestly, I've never been a fan of Westerns. Maybe it had something to do with growing up in a town where some of the biggest jerks I knew fancied themselves cowboys (of the Brokeback variety, I always thought), but that was one piece of Americana I just never got into. That all changed about a year ago, thanks to a certain gunslinger of the Midworld variety, and since then, I've had an almost relentless appetite for Leone Westerns and Clint Eastwood movies (especially Unforgiven, when he shows up in the saloon at the end looking like a demon straight from hell set on bloody murder....anyway). Even then, I still had doubts about Red Dead Redemption. I wasn't sure if I was ready to let this "new" archetype mix with my beloved hobby, but I took a chance.
Red Dead Redemption is the sequel to Rockstar's Red Dead Revolver, a game that I never checked out for reasons I've listed above. If it's half as good as Redemption though, I may have to include it in my Playback feature sometime in the future. The story of RDR is above and beyond anything Rockstar has done to date, and I include GTA4. Set in 1912, in the fading days of the Old West, you play as John Marston, a former outlaw who has tried to go straight, but has been coerced into hunting his old gang, who left him for dead during their last job, by the U.S. Government. What follows is a long, strange trip through the southwest border states and Mexico, filled with interesting and bizarre characters, all of which evoke Western classics without stooping to outright cliches. Fair warning: Hanging out with Seth will change you as a person.
As a player, I developed such a strong connection to John Marston that my image of who he was supposed to be dictated my interactions with the game world. In most games that give you good guy/bad guy choices, I tend to play through all the way in one alignment then the other. The rarity is a game like this (the other being Mass Effect), where I play a certain way because I believe that's who the character really is. While you have the option of shooting lawmen, putting damsels in distress, cheating at cards, starting bar brawls, and robbing banks, stagecoaches, trains, townsfolk, (robbing just about anything really) and all around hellraising, none of these really felt right for the character I was playing. My John Marston really was trying to make things right from his past, and helping folks out was one of the ways I did that. That doesn't mean he was one to be trifled with though, not at all. Beating a lady in front of us earned you a bullet in the head, no discussion. Horse thieves got shot off their ill-gotten mounts, right before we'd calm it down, jump on and ride it back to the rightful owner. Sorry about the mess!
All of the heroic, and not-so-heroic, things you can do in RDR come from a game engine chock full of awesome. Did I ever think that riding a horse in RDR would be more fun than driving a car in GTA? Not really, but it is. The period weaponry may seem limited, but man is it polished and solid. I'll take Marston's Winchester over any of the generic FPS assault rifles any day of the week. One thing RDR has that nothing else does is the oh-so-addictive lasso. The first time you lasso and hogtie the town bully is nothing short of priceless, especially once you figure out how to drag him around from your horse.
In a game full of great accomplishments, it's hard to say which is the greatest, but high in the running is the world itself. It's absolutely huge, and gorgeous. Red Dead Redemption is another of those open world games that makes me enjoy the genre again by doing something different. Breathtaking sunsets that are never the same twice are simply the icing on the cake here, as every type of terrain you traverse from wide open plains, vast, scorching deserts, deep forests to snowy mountain peaks, is beautifully rendered. Each is also filled with wildlife; almost 30 species of animal exist in the world, and you can hunt them if you choose. Seriously though, watch out for cougars. And bears. They want your head in their mouth. I can't tell you how many times I was lining up a shot, picking flowers, or just staring off into the distance when something leaped up and knocked me off my horse, and hit me again and killed me. The only thing worse than cougars would be zombie cougars, but I think we're safe from those in RDR. Perfectly safe.
RDR has also become a decent multiplayer hit, and honestly, it's pretty fun. Co-op missions are a blast, and nothing compares to being Most Wanted and riding around the world, shooting it out with everyone else on the server that wants to collect on your bounty (and seeing them coming a mile off, and shooting them right off their horse with a sniper rifle. Hee hee.).
In a year full of must-plays, Red Dead Redemption is easily one of the, uh, mustiest. All of its elements combine to make one awesome video game Western, and I thought I would never say that.
*If you get this in-joke, you are automatically awesome.
My Killzone 2 Stats
- Platform: PS3 (Exclusive)
- Release Date: 2/27/09 (1 year and a half behind! New ASBGB record!)
- Playthroughs: 1 @ 10 hours
- Trophies: 29/84
- I compare it to: Every shooter out there. Seriously.
- Play it again?: One and Done!
- Urgency: None, unless you are dying to kill people online, only have a PS3 and don't play Call of Duty on principle.
This may make me sound all kinds of bad, but until a few days ago, I totally forgot that I played this game. At least until I looked at my PS3 Trophy collection (which has sadly been collecting dust, and now my main competitor is substantially ahead). How's that for a ringing endorsement of Sony's flagship shooter series?
With a plot I can only describe as a vapid casserole of FPS cliches masquerading as gritty sci-fi drama, truly stupid supporting characters (or one at least, the forgiving would describe him as "impulsive"), and gameplay that may stand up to, but in no way out from, the Call of Dutys and Halos of the world, it's no wonder that Killzone 2 has gotten buried in the avalanche of quality (and not-so-quality) titles from this year and last that I've written about this summer.
First, let me say this. Killzone 2 is pretty. Damn pretty. At least as pretty as an invasion of the polluted Helghast (Space Nazi) homeworld could be, anyway. It is a very good looking game. Judicious use of motion blur, dynamic lighting, and the occasional in-game event really work to pull the player in visually, and generally does a good job. Killzone 1 was one of the best looking games on the PS2, especially when it was released, and so was Killzone 2 on the PS3. However, compared to later releases like Uncharted 2 and God of War 3, KZ2 fails to impress somewhat, but that's what happens when you play a game a year and a half after it's initial release.
My first, and lasting impression with gameplay was that the developer switched around certain buttons on the control scheme for the sole purpose of not being like Call of Duty. But, they seem to know that the default scheme wouldnt make sense to experienced shooter players (which is certainly their target audience), so a very CoD-like control scheme is available. Once I figured this out, I was off and running.
Another thing KZ2 has going for it is its selection of fun and awesome weapons, which make up only about a third of the total arsenal, sadly. The highpoint of the game for me was nailing Space Nazis (I don't care if they're called the Helghast, they're Space Nazis) to the wall with a spike-loaded sniper rifle(the Boltgun), and frying a crowd of Galactic Socialists with a lightning gun. I know there were some high points of the game other than this, but, as I said, I just don't remember. Certainly nothing like the mile-long sniper shot in CoD 4 or storming the Scarab in Halo 2.
The original Killzone was one of the only online shooters on the PS2, and thus multiplayer is truly this franchises legacy. It shows in the sequel, as after playing the campaign through once, I only have 29% of the available trophies. The vast majority are for multiplayer, and you all know how enthusiastic I am about multiplayer, especially for online PS3 shooters. Yeah, didn't even bother.
If you actually like playing shooters on the PS3 (I don't, I think the 360 controller is much better suited to the task, though I prefer the PS controller for just about everything else), I guess I could recommend Killzone 2 to you. Killzone 3 comes out in a few months, and if you're caught up in the story (in which case I don't get you) or loved the old school online multiplayer (which is more likely), then you probably have this. If not, give it a try, or don't. I won't remember in either case.
Next Week! Something! For Sure!
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